Free Troubled Midnight by John Gardner

phrase, from a double act who spent their time talking about food. Nan Kenway and Douglas Young: proper à la carte they were.
    “Chief?” Cathy said, a little loudly.
    “That was me last time I looked,” Tommy responded with one of his charming smiles. From where Suzie was standing it looked as though a flirtation was going on.
    “Well, Chief,” Cathy moved closer to him and Suzie bristled. “That fellow Shepherd.”
    “Yes.”
    “He’s from the Home Office isn’t he?”
    “Some kind of funny, yes.” Tommy said.
    “Well, don’t know what he told you but he’d been down to have a look at the bodies.”
    “He did?”
    “Yes, the local DS – Stimpson is it? Yes, Stimpson told me. He had some official pass and Stimpson let him have quite a long gander, Chief.”
    “Really, let’s not let on that we know. Right?” Tommy flashed his smile. The terrible one.
    “That was a character out of that Tommy Handley show wasn’t it?” Tommy turned to address Suzie as they came to the big watermill, just past The Shears public house at the bottom of Mill Street.
    “What character?” Suzie asked, bewildered at Tommy’s sudden change of subject.
    “Curry Shepherd. When he left us. Here, in the nick before we went to lunch.”
    She tried to strain her mind back a couple of hours. Curry Shepherd. The three of them with Shirley Cox after they had arrived back at the nick. Oh, yes, she recalled Curry leaving. “I go. I come back,” he had said.
    “Yes, Chief. Yes, he said that fellow’s catch phrase. Yes, ‘I go. I come back.’ Fellow from ITMA.”
    It’s That Man Again – ITMA – the country’s all time favourite morale-boosting, must hear (Thursday evenings 8.30 pm BBC Home Service) radio show, far and away ahead of even the American Jack Benny Show now broadcast on Sunday lunchtimes. ITMA’s endless fund of catch phrases were repeated by people in queues, shops, waiting rooms, school play grounds and offices, everyone buoyed up by the many comic asides the show engendered – “Mr. Handley!” as Miss Hotchkiss bore down on the infamous Minister of Aggravation and Mysteries (at one time the Mayor of Foaming-in-the-Mouth); “I don’t mind if I do, sir,” from the bibulous Colonel Chinstrap; the cleaning lady, Mrs Mopp’s “Can I do you now, sir?” and “I go. I come back.” Ali Oop’s exit line.
    “Ali,” said Suzie.
    “Ali who?” asked Tommy.
    “Oop,” Suzie said.
    “Of course,” Tommy grinned. “After you, Claude.” He quoted.
    “That was Claude and Cecil.” Suzie wondered if it was Tommy who was disturbing her. Why should it be? But he was changing. His attitude and manner altering. Why? No idea. She could read him like a book and if he’d stuck in his usual groove of not suffering fools gladly he would have gone off his chump over lunch. The manager of the Bear Hotel would normally have been blown out of his own dining room. Ten times out of ten Tommy detonated in the face of people behaving like idiots, or being what folk these days called ‘Little Hitlers’. But not today. She heard his voice in her head, “Don’t worry about it.” Quite out of character – except when he was on a charm offensive. So, could it be Tommy who was causing her uncertain confidence?
    They made their way into the Mill Street Police Station, heading straight for the office they were setting up as the Murder Room, Tommy calling out to the desk sergeant that they’d like to interview Colonel Weaving’s sergeant if it wasn’t too much bother. If the unstable anger was gone, Suzie thought, at least the sarcasm was alive and doing well.
    Shirley was waiting for them looking pleased with herself, the office neat and orderly.
    “Got yourself a billet, WDS Cox?” Tommy asked, walking around, moving things about.
    “Very lucky, Chief. Yes.”
    “With the others at The Blue Boar, eh?”
    “No, Chief. Private house.”
    “Really?” Tommy back on his normal form, expecting Shirley to volunteer